A Million Pieces
by Oro
Summary: And it doesn’t seem at all sudden, but normal, completely and totally normal for him to be attracted to his best friend of God knows how many years.


A Million Pieces

Author: Oro

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Aaron Sorkin owns Danny. And Casey. And Sports Night. But I own the pig/cat!

Notes: My love goes out to Tory who said she'd write me Tobywill smut if I wrote Dannycasey. And also: to Danielle.

1.

"Dude," Dan's eyes widen curiously at the strange activity Casey seemed to be involved in, "what are you doing?"

"I," says Casey, taking a little moment from his evident physical effort in order to talk to Danny, "am making a clay pig." And indeed, his hands are covered in what appears to be clay. This is unusual yet not enough to bother anyone except for Danny, who at the moment is sitting on the couch in their office occupied with staring at Casey.

"You don't seem to be doing a very good job, there, Case." Danny notes, trying to hide his amusement with nonchalance.

"This might be because I am not, apparently, an arts and crafts man," Casey confesses, his teeth gritted.

"Probably not." Dan replies sympathetically.

"I am a man of many things." Casey says in an attempt to restore his broken manhood.

"Okay."

"But not arts and crafts."

"Which poses the question, my friend."

"Yes?"

"Why the hell are you making a pig out of clay?"

"I wanted to make a dreidle, but was suddenly inspired by the muse of the pig."

"The muse of the pig?"

"Yes."

"Pig has a muse?"

"Apparently, Danny, it does."

"You know, I didn't get to sing earlier because I chose to comment on the part about the muse. Can I sing now?"

"No. Shut up."

"But I love to sing."

"Yes, but you're also very bad at it."

"You're mean."

"Yet lovable."

"Not feeling the love."

"But you always feel the love."

"Not now," Dan says, pouting.

Casey gives him an amused gaze and notices how the light plays on Danny's lips when he does that, and how cute he looks when he does it. Then he catches himself; he isn't used to thinking these thoughts, well, not about men, and not about this particular man. As he catches himself, more of Danny's handsome features are suddenly visible to his (until now blind) eyes. And Dan just sits there, on the couch, reading a newspaper, only sending the occasional glance at Casey's direction throughout a pretty normal, usual banter; and yet there he was, thinking positive thoughts about another human being who also happened to be male. Suddenly, he does want to feel the love. And it doesn't seem at all sudden, but normal, completely and totally normal for him to be attracted to his best friend of God knows how many years. And this process only takes him a few seconds, throughout which he is simply staring at Dan, his own hands covered in clay.

"Dude?" Dan raises an eyebrow.

Casey shakes his head, "Yeah. Yeah. So there's the clay pig."

"If you squint, it sort of looks like a cat," says Danny, squinting.

"As if you could make a better looking one." Casey tries sound normal and succeeds; he's had years of training, being on television and all that.

"Hey, I am only here to mock." Dan says, again with the nonchalance.

"I noticed." Casey frowns.

2.

Casey's clay cat is standing, tall and proud (or crooked and a bit scary, depends on how you look at it), on Danny's desk now; Casey had insisted on giving it to Dan, falsely claiming it's a pig and not a cat, and Dan graciously accepted the gift, not once stopping to doubt that it was actually a cat. And so it stands. A lone, frightened little creature in a loveless world, a world that must not yet be ready for this level of fine art, or at least it's what Danny told Casey when Natalie walked by and asked him why he had a clay bird on his desk.

"She hurt my artistic feelings, Danny," Casey says, either truly hurt or just seeking sympathy.

"I know she did, man," Danny loyally shares his pain.

"I like to think I did a good job."

"Hey, would I lie to you?" Danny says, a friendly smile on his lips.

"Yes."

"About your talent?"

"I don't know," Casey replies sheepishly.

"It's too evident, my man."

"You still think it's a cat."

"And a very fine cat, if I might add."

"It's a pig, Danny."

"Dude, why are you fooling yourself?"

"Hmm?" Casey returns from the land of being-lost-in-Danny's-eyes.

"It's a cat!"

"Pig."

"Cat."

"I like to think it means something. A progress of a sort, an emotional process, my feelings. I like to think of it as poetry in motion, the true shape of love, the…oh, I don't know. It's a pig." I like to think of it as a symbol, a token of my love for you; he doesn't say.

"I'm not sure what you said just then, but your cat deserves to be loved." Dan says honestly.

"Thanks." Casey smiles, and as he looks at his partner's face, he really doesn't give a damn if it's a cat or a pig, only that Dan likes it or at least is willing to acknowledge what Casey, in his mind, referred to as the fruit of his love for Dan Rydell.

3.

It's morning, winter, cold. The clay cat/pig is now wearing a scarf, and Casey is touched. Because Danny cares. And as time from when he fell in love passed, every positive reaction was a cause for celebration and every sentence and expression would be analyzed, because that's what you do when you're in love. You fantasize, and you overanalyze, and when you fall out of love it's all you miss about it; an idea. Casey lies in bed at night thinking about Danny, and it's almost routine fantasy to him now. So he comes to the office, and there's a scarf neatly wrapped around the cat's neck, and Danny is on his chair grinning.

"I thought it might be cold, you know, when we're not around." He says with all due seriousness.

And Casey just smiles. And the urge to go over and kiss the hell out of Dan is so powerful, and oh, how he would like to just say the hell with it and surrender, to hell with consequence. For a moment there, he seriously considers kissing Danny, but instead settles on sitting in the chair next to him. "Hi," he says.

"Hello."

"You like the pig."

"Of course I do. You know how I am about gifts, yeah?"

"Yes." Casey smiles.

"So you made me a cat. Out of clay. And here I am making sure it stays alive."

"Quite sad when you think about it."

"Yeah."

"I'm attracted to you," Casey suddenly says, regretting it the moment the words escape his lips.

Danny's grin fades. "What?" he asks, now shocked.

"I. I'm attracted to you."

"What do you mean?"

"I see you."

"Yeah?"

"And I think that hmm, it would be a really good idea to kiss you right about now."

"And this happens when?"

"All the time," Casey admits.

Dan's eyes widen in shock. "And what, you're gay? And I'm like, the object of your affection?" his tone shifts from quiet to angry.

"I… I guess I am."

"You were going to tell me this when, exactly?"

"I don't know. I don't… this is all new to me. I'm not used to…"

"Okay, I don't think I want to have this conversation right now." Dan says, quickly getting up from his chair.

"Danny…" Casey softly pleads.

"What?" Dan turns to him in anger. "What the hell can you say right now that would make me not pissed at you? I thought we were friends, I thought we were able to share things."

Casey gets up as well. "You know what?" he says, new anger tinting his tone of voice, "I think I have a right to privacy. And this, my romantic, sexual, my preference, it's private! No one needs to know, because those are my feelings and I have a right to keep them to myself! So excuse me if my being attracted to you doesn't fit into your plans or whatever!"

And Danny is quiet; because that's the last thing he wants to be doing. So he calls it quits: "Look, I just want to be alone right now… alone, okay. So I'm going to go now… I'll see you later or something." He says this and simply walks away, because even if he is mad, he knows somehow that this is so not what he wants it all to end over.

Yet he slams the door, and the cat falls onto the floor and in a piercing sound; for a moment there, it's like the world slows down as it meets the floor and breaks into a million little pieces. And Casey is alone again, his head in his hands.

4.

And a broken cat, Casey learns, can be made unbroken; so he sits with his miserable pig, which will now be referred to as a lot of pieces, which he tentatively glues back together with superglue. It helps him get over his anger, and regain regret, and decide that once he's done he shall take Napoleon's battle plan. Because it never fails.

"I fixed it," he quietly says, handing over the fixed clay critter to Danny, not daring to look into his eyes.

Had he been looking, he would see his love's eyes soften at the sight of the result of all the hard work Casey put into fixing it, a total 'awwww' moment if this hadn't been seriously about them. So he just takes it. "Thanks," he says.

Casey just stands there, feeling as though there is nothing left for him to give Dan, as though he comes to him with his heart wide open and his hands empty, or some other cliché. So Danny steps closer to him, and pulls him into a hug, because it seems like the only thing he could do that would make sense. And the boys inhale each other's scents as Casey's head rests on Danny's shoulder.

This is when he realizes he really would rather just be friends with Danny than nothing at all.

5.

New morning, new day, and even if things seemed last night as though they could never be the same again, they are. Rundown meeting, research, writing their lines, some random ball tosses; they seem to be tiptoeing, though, trying not to hurt each other or say the wrong thing.

And there's the show, and they make it, and it goes wonderfully: because they are professionals and they'd won awards, maybe not so much Dan but surely Casey, and they are powerful men in the industry (again, not so much Dan as much as Casey), and this is what they do every night from eleven to midnight. They wouldn't trade it for anything.

So after the show they're back at the office, and somehow they both end up looking at the cat. And Danny grabs Casey and he kisses him, not because he has to but because he's been doing some serious thinking and this is what he wants; this is who he wants to be with. This is Casey.

And Casey licks the insides of Dan's mouth, holding him in his arms, knowing that it would be difficult but feeling ready for anything they might have to face in this (very complicated) relationship on which they had just embarked. They're both ready. And even if they aren't, all that really matters is how good the combination of them tastes.

FIN


End file.
